key: cord-0727190-okn3x49d
authors: Ximenes, Ana Carênina Albuquerque; Macedo, Ana Angélica Mathias; Joaquim, João José; Pinto, Marta Vasconcelos; Mendes, Fernando
title: The institutionality of the policy agenda against SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: a comparative study between Brazil and Portugal
date: 2021-08-03
journal: Eur J Public Health
DOI: 10.1093/eurpub/ckab120.037
sha: 70be6d95040b12eed1ab721ac2fc14cc4bebb27a
doc_id: 727190
cord_uid: okn3x49d

BACKGROUND: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic imposed challenges to researchers and governments in proposing political strategies to contain the transmission chain. Despite being an issue of global impact, the public policy strategies in fighting this pandemic depend on each country. This scenario demands studies to describe and explore these policies' institutionality. In this context, a question raises on how the biggest economies of the Portuguese language, Brazil and Portugal, have conducted the public policy agenda against the pandemic. METHODS: A comparative, qualitative, and descriptive study of the public policy agenda setting in Brazil and Portugal to fight against the pandemic was conducted through bibliographic and document research. The theoretical axis adopted was the Institutional Economy and the elaborations and management of public policy, mainly Douglas North, Geoffrey M. Hodgson, and Amatya Sen’s studies. RESULTS: The combat against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was translated in a search for urgency analytical theories, elaboration, implementation, and evaluation of public policies in Brazil and Portugal. In both countries, social restriction strategies were adopted such as closing public places, stores, and schools. Also, some economic actions were established to mitigate these restrictions’ impacts, more limited in Brazil as a neoliberal picture of the current government. CONCLUSIONS: The results pointed to differences and similarities in Portuguese and Brazilian agendas, especially with the virus transmission mitigating strategies and the social and economic assistance, being Brazil suffering from the negationism culture that promoted contagion and mortality acceleration.

A descriptive cross-sectional correlational study was performed in the period immediately after the first lockdown. Participants were 775 students (females = 73.5%), aged between 17 and 55 years. All of them completed measures of the Psychological Well-Being Manifestation Scale (PWBMS; or EMMBEP, in the Portuguese version, by Monteiro, Tavares e Pereira, 2012) measuring six dimensions, components of the eudaimonic model of well-being. Collected data were analyzed with IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows software, Version 27.0.

The results obtained revealed differences of quality in the scores of the six measured dimensions. If subjective experiences on Mental Balance and Sociability are the best indicators of the well-being, the perception of the lack of Social Involvement and low Happiness appear to be limitative factors to the perceived well-being. We also found significant differences in terms of polytechnic institute attended, gender, age categories, and marital status.

The obtained results provide the basis to design and develop a targeted intervention main program focused on the empowerpling. Study with a quantitative, descriptive, correlational approach. The WHOQOL-bref instrument adapted from WHO was applied. Data analysis was undertaken using the IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 27.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.

Students' self-assessment about Quality of Life is globally superior to the self-assessment with their satisfaction with health, where the female students have lower average values than the male students. The WHOQOL-bref domains referring to Quality of Life with higher values were the Physical and the Environment ones, with the Social Relations and Psychological domains having the lowest values.

The development of this study made it possible to achieve the objective set. The domain of social relations has low average values, with students from IPSantarem standing out, with lower self-assessment of QoL in this domain, compared to those from IPLeiria. In the psychological domain, the low 

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic imposed challenges to researchers and governments in proposing political strategies to contain the transmission chain. Despite being an issue of global impact, the public policy strategies in fighting this pandemic depend on each country. This scenario demands studies to describe and explore these policies' institutionality. In this context, a question raises on how the biggest economies of the Portuguese language, Brazil and Portugal, have conducted the public policy agenda against the pandemic. Methods A comparative, qualitative, and descriptive study of the public policy agenda setting in Brazil and Portugal to fight against the pandemic was conducted through bibliographic and document research. The theoretical axis adopted was the Institutional Economy and the elaborations and management of public policy, mainly Douglas North, Geoffrey M. Hodgson, and Amatya Sen's studies.

The combat against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was translated in a search for urgency analytical theories, elaboration, implementation, and evaluation of public policies in Brazil and Portugal. In both countries, social restriction strategies were adopted such as closing public places, stores, and schools. Also, some economic actions were established to mitigate these restrictions' impacts, more limited in Brazil as a neoliberal picture of the current government.

The results pointed to differences and similarities in Portuguese and Brazilian agendas, especially with the virus transmission mitigating strategies and the social and economic assistance, being Brazil suffering from the negationism culture that promoted contagion and mortality acceleration. Keywords: SARS-Cov-2, Public policy, Brazil, Portugal.

Effects of the first quarantine in health care services on the Portuguese population

With the COVID-19 pandemic, the lack of information about this new virus, and its high transmissibility in humans, ii12 European Journal of Public Health, Volume 31 Supplement 2, 2021

Joel Marouvo 1,3 , Marina Saraiva 1,3 , Antó nio Brito 4

Portugal 3 Faculty of Sports